Franz von Benda-Beckmann (Greifswald, 29 November 1941 – Amsterdam, 7 January 2013) was a legal anthropologist who published many scholarly books and articles on legal anthropological theory and on property rights, social (in)security, and legal pluralism in developing countries. He held academic positions at the University of Zurich, Leiden University, Wageningen University & Research, and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.Beyer and Weilenmann 2013
Biography Von Benda-Beckmann studied law at Kiel University, LMU Munich, and the University of Lausanne. He then wrote his Kiel doctoral thesis Geschichtliche Entwicklung und heutige Problematik des pluralistischen Rechtssystems eines ehemals britischen Kolonialgebiets based on 11 months of field work in Malawi.In 2007, an English translation was published: After an assistantship at the Ethnological Seminar of the University of Zurich and habilitation there in general ethnology in 1979, he taught as a Privatdozent in Zurich and as a privaatdocent in Leiden.
From 1981 to 2000, he was Professor of Law in Developing Countries at Wageningen Agricultural University. His wife Keebet von Benda-BeckmannFull name Cornelia Elisabeth ("Keebet") von Benda-Beckmann-Droogleever Fortuijn (1946-2022) from . and he jointly became research directors of the Legal Pluralism Project Group (German: Projektgruppe Rechtspluralismus) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Saale) in 2000, where he facilitated the establishment of the third Department of Law and Ethnology (Recht und Ethnologie).
Franz von Benda-Beckmann published 29 books and 266 articles, in part in co-authorship with his wife Keebet von Benda-Beckmann. He was active in national and international committees, such as the International Commission on Legal Pluralism of the International Union of Ethnological and Anthropological Sciences which he co-founded with his wife.
Honours Leipzig University appointed him Honorary Professor of Ethnology in 2002. In 2004, he became Honorary Professor of Legal Pluralism at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.
Publications Von Benda-Beckmann published many scholarly books and articles, including: Search for Franz von Benda-Beckmann. Search for Franz von Benda-Beckmann. Juridical PhD dissertation, Kiel 1970. Translated as Habilitation thesis, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal, Land- en Volkenkunde, Leiden, 455 pages. 495 pages.
Secondary literature
References
External links .
Notes on Malawi.